2G: Non-UPA JPC members seek FM note documents

Dissatisfied with the reply about non-submission of the controversial March 25 note on 2G spectrum allocation before the panel examining the issue, non-UPA members of the JPC today asked the Finance Ministry to provide input documents that helped its compilation.

Dissatisfied with the reply about non-submission of the controversial March 25 note on 2G spectrum allocation before the panel examining the issue, non-UPA members of the JPC on Monday asked the Finance Ministry to provide input documents that helped its compilation.

Secretary Economic Affairs R Gopalan and Secretary Revenue R S Gujaral appeared before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Monday to explain why the 2G note was not provided to the Committee.

BJP leaders, including Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha, alleged that the word approval has been over-written by the word perusal in the covering letter of the note.

The note, which had allegedly indicated that had the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram insisted on auctioning of 2G spectrum, the scam could have been prevented, was not made available to the panel.

The covering letter to the note had said that the note was seen by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

After the controversy kicked up, the JPC, looking into the 2G issue, had asked the Finance Ministry why the note was not made available to the panel.

"It was a post facto compilation (and), therefore, the Finance Ministry did not deem it necessary to provide it to the Joint Parliamentary Committee looking into the scam," a top official of the ministry told the panel on Monday.

Gopalan told the Committee that the note had nothing new in it as it was a post facto compilation of documents on the 2G issue.

Most of the non-UPA members are understood to have told the Finance Ministry official that they were not satisfied with the reply and that the ministry should provide the Committee with all input documents, which had helped in the compilation of the controversial note.

The Finance Ministry is learnt to have told the Committee that it will come back to it with the relevant documents.